NASHVILLE, Tennessee, Jan 20, (AP): Tuskegee Airman Herbert Carter flew 77 missions during World War II and crashed landed only once, impressive numbers that challenged those skeptical of the abilities of black aviators. Decades later, he and the other legendary African-American airmen he flew with must once again prove themselves — at the box office. “Red Tails,” a movie chronicling the heroism of the Tuskegee Airmen and starring Cuba Gooding Jr and Terence Howard, opened Friday in 2,500 American theaters. “Star Wars” creator George Lucas has been blunt about his 23-year struggle to make the film. He said executives at every major studio rejected it because they didn’t think mainstream viewers would pay to see an all-black cast. The 94-year-old Carter sees the hesitation by studios as history repeating itself. “It goes back to the old axiom that the all-black fighter squadron, in their estimate, wasn’t going to do well,” said Carter, who made a career of the Air Force and retired as a lieutenant colonel. “It ... doesn’t surprise me.” The Tuskegee Airmen were the first black aviators in the US military. They were trained in Alabama at Tuskegee Institute, now Tuskegee University, as a segregated unit during World War II.

Affluent
After being admitted to the Army Air Corps, they were prohibited from fighting alongside white counterparts and faced severe prejudice, yet went on to become one of World War II’s most respected fighter squadrons, successfully escorting countless bombers during the war. And once back home, many became affluent businessmen and community leaders, despite the continued racism they faced.
“My heroes, those original airmen, set the pace for us younger people,” quipped 77-year-old Leon Crayton, a former Air Force flier and member of the honorary Tuskegee Airmen chapter in Tuskegee, Alabama, one of 55 in the US.
Lucas had several of the surviving airmen join him for a screening of the movie in New York last week, including Dr Roscoe Brown, Floyd Carter, Roscoe Draper, Shade Lee, Charles McGee, Eugene Richardson and Theobald G. Wilson.

Nate Parker, who plays the role of a flight leader in “Red Tails,” said he and the other actors were motivated by the leadership and bravery of the airmen, who distinguished themselves by painting the tails of their planes red, and formed a circle of prayer before many of their missions.
“They all strove for excellence,” said Parker. “Excellence is the driving force through adversity, in everything we do.”
Syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, whose father was an early cadet in the Tuskegee Airman program, agreed. He said airmen like his father inspired him at one time to do a morning show in Dallas and then fly to Chicago for an afternoon show, earning the nicknames “The Fly Jock” and “The Hardest Working Man in Radio.”
While the big studios may calculate that a movie focused on blacks can’t be a box office success, promoters of “Red Tails” are playing up the aerial thrills and heroism that should appeal to all viewers, regardless of their race.

Surviving
“These are American heroes whose story just needs to be put on the largest, biggest, widest screen possible,” said Tirrell Whittley, head of Liquid Soul Media, which is marketing the film. Carter and other surviving airmen, some of whom were advisers during the making of the movie, say they’re appreciative to Lucas for spending nearly $100 million of his own money to make and market the film. “It’s a wonderful feeling that finally there is some recognition that’s being done in a manner that is credible to the Tuskegee Airmen,” Carter said. Black filmmakers and actors are pulling for the movie to be successful because they realize its success could mean more opportunities for them. “Every black film that’s made seems to have a bearing on whether black filmmakers get an opportunity,” said Terverius Black, a filmmaker in Huntsville, Alabama. “I want to see it be successful.” Joyner said he too wants the movie to have strong box office numbers, but acknowledges it will be challenging.

“You have to make twice the money that you put in just to break even,” Joyner said. “You put in $100 million, you got to make $200 million. So this will be pretty monumental.” Some historians and scholars believe the movie’s general war theme will be an attraction to all audiences. Bobby Lovett was a history professor at Tennessee State University in Nashville for nearly 40 years before recently retiring. He often invited some of the Tuskegee Airmen to speak to his students, who were fascinated by their stories.
“There’s a sort of romanticism attached to pilots and aircraft,” he said. “I don’t know of any other story you could pull out of World War II that would be as appealing to an audience.”
Vanderbilt University professor Alice Randall said the movie could introduce some to a portion of black history they’ve never heard.
“We have an opportunity to ... educate viewers, even as we entertain them, about the rainbow of Americans who have performed patriotic duty for this country,” said Randall, a writer-in-residence in African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt.
Tennessee Rep Tony Shipley, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who has attended events with the Tuskegee Airmen, said “the war could have gone a different direction” had it not been for the airmen who escorted bombers deep into Germany.

“Those guys were ... absolutely awesome,” said Shipley, who is white. “And if anybody pays attention to the story — who cares black, white, green, yellow — they were Americans. People are alive today whose grandfather would have been killed had it not been for the Tuskegee Airmen.”
Vernice Armour, the nation’s first black female combat pilot, said the airmen helped pave the way for men and women in the military, and noted a phrase at the bottom of a poster advertising the movie that reads: “Courage has no color.”
“Without their honor, courage and sacrifice, I wouldn’t be where I am,” said Armour, who served two tours during the Iraq War as a Marine.
The Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for their service in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and were invited to attend President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009. President Obama and the first lady screened “Red Tails” at the White House last week.
Regardless of its impact at the box office, many believe the inspirational message of the movie will linger for a long time.
“These are the type of films I try to do,” Parker said. “Things that ... you can take into our community and effect change in a way that the airmen did.”

Review
In “Red Tails,” the famed Tuskegee Airmen get the John Wayne-style heroic rendering they very much deserve, but in a hackneyed and weirdly context-less story that does them a disservice.
Long a pet project of his, George Lucas self-financed the film and has said he hopes “Red Tails” will prove there’s an audience for all-black movies. That’s a laudable goal, but “Red Tails” reduces a historical story of deep cultural significance to merely a flyboy flick.
Instead of creating something authentic and new, “Red Tails” superimposes the tale of the black World War II pilots on a dated, white genre of 1940s patriotic propaganda. “Red Tails” is blatantly old-fashioned, just with a change in color.
In medias res hardly says it: “Red Tails” opens in the midst of an aerial dog fight while the credits are still rolling. Director Anthony Hemingway plunges right into the action, skipping all that pesky backstory of black men braving the segregation of Jim Crowe America and, against the odds, rising up at the Tuskegee Institute.

Stressed
That history was stressed in an earlier 1995 HBO film, “The Tuskegee Airmen,” which benefited from Laurence Fishburne’s sturdy presence. A co-star from that movie, Cuba Gooding Jr, is here, too, as the pipe-chomping Maj Emanuelle Stance. The other higher-up with him is Col A.J. Bullard, played with unnatural speech by Terrence Howard, whose smooth voice fails to find the register of a commander.
The film is centered, though, on the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group, which earned the nickname of Red Tails from the painted ends of their P-47 fighters. These first black military aviators in the US armed forces flew more than 150,000 sorties over Europe and North Africa during WWII, often escorting Allied bombers. Sixty-six were killed in action.

Their bravery helped persuade President Harry S. Truman to desegregate the military in 1948. Some 300 of them are still alive, and most, by invitation, attended President Barack Obama’s inauguration.
Our group of thinly sketched pilots all come with cliche nicknames: Joe “Lightning” Little (David Oyelowo), Marty “Easy” Julian (Nate Parker), Ray “Junior” Gannon (Tristan Wilds), Andrew “Smoky” Salem (Ne-Yo), Maurice “Bumps” Wilson (Michael B. Jordan) and Samuel “Joker” George (Elijah Kelly).
The brash, talented Lightning (who at one point is actually referred to as “the best damned pilot we’ve got”) and the alcoholic captain Easy are at the film’s core, which is buoyed by a warm feeling of camaraderie among the pilots. Lightning also pursues and finds romance with a local beauty (Daniela Ruah) near their Italian base.

Exception
Hemingway is a TV veteran best known for his work with David Simon on “The Wire” and “Treme.” One of the pleasures of “Red Tails” is seeing familiar “Wire” actors on the big screen, including Wilds, Jordan and Andre Royo, who plays a mechanic. Surely, theater etiquette allows for the exception of shouting out “Bubbles!” at the first glimpse of Royo.
The biggest flaw here is the corny script by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, the Boondocks cartoonist. There’s a fine, swaggering vibe, but a curious hesitance to really tell the Tuskegee story. Half of their two-front war (at home and in battle) goes largely without depiction, except for one or two minor scrapes with racist officers. Neither is any hint given to the less than rapturous welcoming the men would get on their return home.

The whole thing is unrealistically sunny, both literally and metaphorically. The skies are always bright blue (better for highlighting the digital trickery) and hardly anyone dies. Though this is film about one of the most violent clashes in history, little seems at risk. The racist generals (Bryan Cranston makes a cameo as one) are back in Washington and the free, Italian base is a happy world away from the segregated US. The German fighters are cartoonishly evil.
But ever since “Star Wars,” Lucas and his Industrial Light and Magic effects house have always specialized in aerial combat — and “Red Tails” is no exception. The dogfights are elegant and clearly staged, set against a majestic European landscape.
“Red Tails” might smother the Tuskegee Airmen in the tropes of old Hollywood, but there’s still inspiration to be found in seeing those tropes acted out with goodwill and fresh faces.
“Red Tails,” a 20 Century Fox release, is rated PG-13 for some sequences of war violence. Running time: 125 minutes. Two stars out of four.